Calculate cost estimate using software.

[Shubhangi]

Hello Everyone,

I am here to know more about calculating orders cost estimate using software.

Right now i am working in a printing industry, and there are lots of different product groups used in different sizes & shape. As per the customers requirement the product changes.

To calculate the estimate manually is very time consuming process, so i am interested to know more about the estimate software.


Please suggest me some software product to calculate estimate & order.


Thanking you in advance!!

 

[davarino]

(I am editing this somewhat because I had not thought of Morning Flight.)

There is little inexpensive software that is worth anything, in my experience. (Based on U.S./Canada market.)

Two very good options in the marketplace are PrintSmith and Avanti. Both are in the 10000 USD range or higher.

There is one piece of software that is not expensive and is yet quite functional: Morning Flight. A deluxe version of Morning Flight can be bought for under 500 USD. It is a PC-only program, although it will run on Mac if you use a "virtual machine" loaded with Windows.

I see no reason that a small shop or a shop in a developing economy should have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for what can be essentially a calculator and a database. (The MIS benefits of an expensive system are generally lost in a small shop and are redundant in an economy where labor is not high priced.)

You may wish to develop a spreadsheet based on your market experience and your costs. You could possibly even develop a competitive estimation system with a much more affordable cost, making it cross-platform with Java.

A solution such as that may not have all the MIS bells and whistles, but it could be affordable and useful. It could also be a money-maker for a 2nd or 3rd world software house.

 

[xcelprint]

BeauchampT,

PM sent.

 

[Keith]

Shubhangi, I would recommend Morning Flight. Morning Flight: Printshop Estimating Software for Offset/Copy/Digital I have been using it for over six years. They even have several different languages and the prices are under $1,000 USD and they even have a free version. Feel free to PM me and I would be glad to answer any questions. I do not own nor am I affiliated with Morning Flight or Printfire in any way. I'm just a huge fan!

 

[jwheeler]

I've been in the print industry for over 16 years now and have worked with various estimating methods and software. I would first ask what is the monthly or annual sales you do, and approximately how many jobs do you process a month. This would help determine how robust of a system you need. Also, do you want the software to be able to track the status of the order and what your costs/profit are, do invoicing, etc...or just produce an estimate? Some software can also generate shipping labels, paper order forms, track inventory, etc. Another thing to consider is if you're running only digital printers or if you have offset presses, or a combination. Pricing is done quite differently in both cases. Primarily, digital just requires cost of paper and clicks (plus labor/time) while offset requires accounting for plates, washups, ink mixes, setup time, paper, etc. Another thing to consider is if you take online orders, or would like to in the near future, will the software integrate with that?

I've personally used 3 softwares. The first was proprietary to Minuteman Press, which was a great software but unavailable to the public. The 2nd was Printer's Plan and is quite popular in the industry. It covers pretty much everything I described above and was quite easy to use, nice interface, etc. Lastly, and least favorite was Printers Software. The company I worked at had multiple locations that wanted to use one database and this offered the best features for that. However, outside of that one feature, it had a very poor user interface, and required way too much manual effort to set it up. They had great customer service, but required way too much of it.

Someone earlier mentioned PrintSmith...I have not personally used it, but I have experience with lots of other EFI products and they are all excellent, so I can only imagine it is a good product.

 

[graphios]

Anything for USA?